The Corpse by the Creek: A Succulent Sleuth Cozy Mystery by Iris March
About The Corpse by the Creek
The Corpse by the Creek: A Succulent Sleuth Cozy Mystery
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series (plus 2 short stories)
Setting - Ohio
Publisher : Wandering Gingko Press
Publication date : June 2, 2026
Number of Pages ~200 pages
Digital ISBN-13 : 979-8998642616
ASIN : B0GS6S4HB6
Paperback will be available as well.
Volunteer water sampling. Development deals. A dead businessman in the woods.
While volunteering with a local stream restoration group, Molly and her husband, Scott, expect to end the day with nothing more to show for it than muddy hiking shoes and water samples. Instead, they stumble upon a dead body left in the woods behind the Buckeye Trail. The victim turns out to be Upton North—an unpopular developer with business ties to half the town and enemies to match.
As Molly starts asking questions, she uncovers a web of grudges involving tenants, activists, and business owners. She’ll have to follow clues from forest trails to forgotten basements—and confront just how far greed and intimidation pushed the wrong person too far.
With a busy garden center to manage, and a beloved black and white cat occasionally underfoot, Molly digs into another Succulent Sleuth case where the roots of the crime run deep.
About Iris March
Iris March has a reputation for killing house plants, and now she’s killing people off in books? Coincidence? Perhaps not. Iris has spent two decades working in the sustainability field and is usually either reading a book or on a trail. She lives in Ohio with her husband, son, and three cats.
INTERVIEW
1.
When
did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I was an English and Biology double major. When I graduated from
college, I assumed I’d write a book someday. I just didn’t realize it would
take me more than twenty years to get started.
2.
How
long does it take you to write a book?
Depends on what else I have going on. Most books have taken around six
months to get through the first draft, but then a lot longer to edit and go
through critique and beta readers. My new release, The Corpse by the Creek, only took nine weeks to write the first draft because I was between
jobs.
3.
What
is your work schedule like when you're writing?
I like to write something every workday on my work in progress. I try to
write first thing in the morning and make it the biggest priority of my day. I
try to get a minimum of 500 words in a day, but that doesn’t always happen. But
if I don’t have a lot going on (like when I wrote this book), sometimes I can
write up to 2000 words a day.
4.
What
would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I keep a word count spreadsheet and keep track of how many words I write
every day and every week.
5.
How
do books get published?
My Succulent Sleuth Series is indie published so I am my own publisher.
I go through Draft2Digital for ebooks, Amazon (KDP), and Ingram Spark for other
stores. I hire a book cover designer, a formatter, and an editor.
6.
Where
do you get your information or ideas for your books?
I’ve had a lot of input from an admin guy at my local police station.
He’s told me a lot about what happens when police are called on the scene, what
happens when people are brought to their station, how they are transferred to a
larger prison and so forth. I appreciate how willing he is to share with me,
and he’s actually came and talked to our Sisters in Crime group. I also have a
cousin-in-law whose family runs a garden center, so she has given me quite a
bit of plant-y input and how a garden center works. My mom is also a skilled
gardener and helps me a bit with plant knowledge. But like most fiction
authors, I’m just making this stuff up!
7.
When
did you write your first book and how old were you?
I started to write my first book when I was 39. It is a fictional
retelling of my sister’s journey of beating cancer while being pregnant with
twins and came out in 2022, The Story That Made Us Stronger.
8.
What
do you like to do when you're not writing?
I love to read! I also love to hike, run, and kayak.
9.
What
does your family think of your writing?
My son tells people that I’m an author even though I also work in the
sustainability field. He seems to think that’s a cooler job. Everyone in my
family is very supportive.
10.
What
was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?
I had no idea how to even start writing a book when I opened that first
Google Doc. I’ve learned so much about story structure and character
development.
11.
How
many books have you written? Which is your favorite?
I’m on my seventh book. My favorite book is always the one I’m writing.
12.
Do
you have any suggestions to help me become a better writer? If so, what are
they?
I think you need to read a lot in your genre and keep track of what you
really don’t like and what you love. I also listen to a lot podcasts on craft
and marketing.
13.
Do
you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?
My readers are so encouraging and kind. I always get replies when I send
out my monthly newsletter, and they make my day. There’s one that I took a
screen shot of and is on my desktop for when I feel a little down. I had
thanked my beta readers for their help and one of them replied and said, “It’s
because we love you and your books. Keep writing.”
14.
Do
you like to create books for adults?
(I only create books for adults so I think this is N/A)
15.
What
do you think makes a good story?
I want all the open loops or problems to be solved or the promises of
them to be solved as the series continues. Keeping secrets from readers by the
end of the story, isn’t fair in my opinion.
16.
As
a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
When I was little, I was always going to be “a scientist,” expecting
that I’d be doing “experiments” all day. No idea what kind of science or what
kind of experiments. I was pretty serious about being an astronaut or
astronomer from seventh grade through sophomore year of high school. In high
school, I realized that I was terrible at physics and loved biology, so I
thought I’d be an optometrist. But once I was in college, the environmental
studies classes were my favorite, along with English.
17.
What
would you like my
readers to know?
The third novel in my Succulent Sleuth Series is about to launch, The Corpse by the Creek. They are stories about Molly Green, the manager of Patty’s Plant
Place, a garden center in a fictional town in Northeast Ohio with the (not
fictional) Buckeye Trail running behind it. She inherited the shop when her
beloved grandma died. Molly owns it with her twin sister and cousin. People
keep dying on the trail and she can’t help but get involved with solving the
murders.
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